The high court of Karnataka stayed the giving away of the State Film Award 2010-11 on Tuesday. Justice Abdul Nazeer recalled his earlier order issued in May and ordered that, the State cannot go ahead with the process of giving away the awards. In April, the court had ordered that it cannot give an interim stay but said the award would be subject to the final outcome of the case. Now the State cannot even give away the awards.

The first petition filed by Priya Hasan said her film Bindas Hudugi deserved an award while challenging a special jury award to Ayesha for her stunts alone though she was from another state and did not dub her own voice. Another petition by Basant Kumar Patil demanded that as the winner of highest number of national awards, his film Bettada Jeeva based on Shivarama Karanth's novel deserved an award.

Both the petitioners argued more about their films deserving awards than about the illegality of the constitution of the jury which included Ashok Kashyap and Hema Chaudary whose films Super and Sogasugara were competing for the awards. The judge therefore said that to cancel the awards, he will have to listen to the award winners first as they were beneficiaries and the benefits granted to them cannot be withdrawn. The case will come up for hearing again on Friday. Priya Hasan's advocate had not served notices to the respondents and has to file a fresh plea.